1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technical field of a mobile communication terminal such as a mobile telephone, and more particularly to a technical field of a mobile communication terminal capable of storing at least one of a destination of communication and a source of communication.
2. Description of the Related Art
Up to now, mobile telephones have come into wide use, with which voice communications can easily be performed even while on the road. In particular, in recent years, the mobile telephones are being put to a wider range of uses not only for voice communications but also as communication terminals for performing send and receive (to be simply referred to as send/receive) of e-mails and data communications.
However, in the case of using such a mobile telephone provided with communication functions to send e-mails with identical contents to a plurality of destination addresses, a user must repeat a designation operation for each of the destination addresses to which the e-mails are to be sent. In addition, depending on the specifications of the mobile telephone, limitations may be imposed on the number of destination addresses that can be designated at a time to a single e-mail with the identical contents.
Thus, a user may find it troublesome to operate a mobile telephone for sending e-mails with identical contents to a plurality of destination addresses.
Further, there is a communication terminal (mobile telephone) having a function of storing incoming e-mails by allocating the e-mails to each corresponding folder. In that case, a user needs to designate, for example, an e-mail address of a source of communication to each folder to which the e-mail is to be stored.
Proposed in JP 2002-244984A is an e-mail management device that eliminates a user's operation for e-mail allocation.
Specifically, the above-mentioned e-mail management device includes storage means for registering and managing e-mail address information and one of group information that defines an incoming e-mail storage area for each group and individual information that defines an incoming e-mail storage area for each individual. The e-mail management device extracts e-mail address information from the source of communication of an incoming e-mail, and compares the extracted e-mail address information with e-mail address information that is previously registered in the storage means. Then, if the comparison results indicate that the information coincides with each other, the e-mail management device stores the incoming e-mail by automatically allocating it to the incoming e-mail storage area that is previously associated with the group information or individual information registered in the storage means.
Proposed in JP 2001-358823 A is a mobile telephone that can store in its memory a plurality of telephone numbers corresponding to a single name and information for discriminating each of the telephone numbers.
Specifically, the above-mentioned mobile telephone includes a memory that stores phonebook data in which a name of an individual is associated with a plurality of telephone numbers corresponding to the name, an operation unit for inputting an instruction, and a control unit for retrieving the phonebook data from the memory based on the instruction. In the mobile telephone, the memory further stores information for discriminating each of the plurality of telephone numbers corresponding to the name. As a result of performing retrieval in response to the instruction to retrieve the phonebook data which has been inputted by the operation unit, the control unit successively displays the telephone numbers and information for discriminating the telephone numbers which are stored in the memory.
Proposed in JP 2003-052071 A is a mobile telephone that is capable of sending e-mails with identical contents (for example, an e-mail for notification of change in e-mail address) to a plurality of destinations with ease.
Specifically, in the case where an e-mail address is changed or other such cases, the above-mentioned mobile telephone collectively sends e-mails with identical contents to all or selected part of a plurality of addresses included in phonebook data stored in a memory and a plurality of addresses included in the data of e-mails that have already been sent/received.
Proposed in JP 10-164210 A is a mobile telephone that can store in its memory a plurality of telephone numbers corresponding to a single name and information for discriminating each of the telephone numbers.
Specifically, in the above-mentioned mobile telephone, a memory stores a plurality of telephone numbers corresponding to a name of an individual as phonebook data. In response to an instruction inputted from an operation part, a control part retrieves the phonebook data from the memory to thereby extract the plurality of telephone numbers stored corresponding to an instructed name, and successively originates a call to the plurality of extracted destinations.
Proposed in JP 2001-117883 A is a technique for exchanging name card information converted in an electronic format between mobile telephones in a wireless communication system such as one using infrared rays.
The conventional mobile telephones have the following problems. That is, there is known a function of recording identification information (including a person's name and a company's name) for specifying a destination of communication in an address book on a basis of a group set by a user. In this case, by searching a group set in a mobile telephone, identification information corresponding to a target destination of communication can be extracted. However, in the case where an identical destination of communication is to belong to a plurality of groups, it becomes necessary to record the identical destination of communication in every group.
Alternatively, there is a mobile telephone having a function of allowing a predetermined number of (for example, up to five) e-mail addresses to be registered as one group address. In such a mobile telephone, when a user selects the group address for a destination address upon sending an e-mail, e-mail addresses for the predetermined number are extracted for the destination address of a single e-mail with identical contents. However, depending on the specifications of the mobile telephone, an operation for registering addresses for the group address needs to be performed separately from a registration operation for an address book. Further, even with such a mobile telephone having a group address function, there is a case where a plurality of group addresses cannot be designated as the destination address upon sending an e-mail.